Harriet Jean Moody (May 9, 1891 – March 9, 1966) was an American architect who designed distinctive Storybook Cottages in the

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

, area. The Historic Landmarks Commission has been working with the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and Santa Barbara Planning Board to protect the close to three dozen homes known to have been built by her.

Early life, family and education

Harriet Jean Moody was born on May 9, 1891, in

, the eldest of five siblings. The four sisters worked together in property development utilizing their skills for a unique "total package"—from design and engineering to planning and interior design to real estate and banking transactions. Harriet was an architect; Brenda was the Santa Barbara County Recorder and later worked in real estate; Wilma was a banker; Mildred studied art at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and did interior designing. Bert, the only boy, became a

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

teacher. Moody attended college in Santa Barbara and then trained with a local architect by the name of Serferly.

Career

From 1912 to 1922, she worked with her father, a local

builder Builder may refer to: * Construction worker, who specializes in building work * Carpenter, a skilled craftsman who works with wood * General contractor, that specializes in building work ** Subcontractor * Builder (detergent), a component of moder ...

, designing houses. After her father's retirement in 1922, Moody took a job as Assistant City Engineer until 1925. After the 1925 earthquake, she and George Morrison, who had been her boss in the Civil Engineering office, formed a business partnership and worked on planned neighborhoods in the Goleta and Isla Vista. In 1932, Moody designed a studio for her sister Mildred at 1086 Coast Village Road. It served as Mildred's art studio and later both an antique shop and tea room. Throughout the 1930s, Moody built small, quaint Storybook Cottages, which were affordable during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. Some of the first that she built — six cottages on Periwinkle Lane in Montecito — brought orders for six more on Rosemary Lane. In the 1940s, George Owen Knapp commissioned Moody to build houses for his workers on his estate ''Arcady'' in Montecito. Typically, Harriet designed the spaces; her preferred contractor, Dixon H. MacQuiddy, built the houses; Mildred focused on the interiors and finding antiques; Brenda worked as the escrow or real estate agent; and occasionally Wilma may have provided banking services. As supplies were limited because of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

, the sisters often used architectural reclamations giving the cottages a unique feel. Many large estates had been dismantled during the depression in an effort to reduce taxes, creating potential for salvage and recycling of the beams, doors, windows, and other fixtures. Moody's work was also typified by high ceilings, various storage areas to fit the irregular spaces, small gabled entryways, board and batten siding, canted corners, diamond-shaped window panes,

wall dormer A wall dormer is a dormer whose facial plane is integral with the facial plane of the wall that it is built into, breaking the line of the eaves of a building. Wall dormers are less commonly seen than typical “roof dormers”. They locate the w ...

s, and multiple roof types, including cross-gabled roofs with pitched slopes, uneven span gables and wood shingle roofing. About three dozen of Moody's designs have been identified and many have been placed on the rolls of the Historic Landmarks Commission, such as the one at 170 Middle Road in Montecito.

Retirement and death

Moody retired in 1950 and died on March 9, 1966, in Santa Barbara.

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Moody, Harriet 1891 births 1966 deaths 20th-century American architects Architects from California American women architects People from Santa Barbara, California 20th-century American women